Editorial
Editorial
Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Forensic Practice, Volume 15, Issue 3.
Welcome to issue Vol. 15 No. 3 of the Journal of Forensic Practice. We have aimed for a broad range of papers in this issue, with a strong emphasis on practical application for both clinicians and organisations. We start this issue with a provoking invited practice paper by Mary Barnao, focusing on applying the Good Lives Model Tool Kit for forensic clients with mental disorder. This argues a new approach to offender rehabilitation that provides a focused framework for assisting individuals to achieve their goals while reducing their future risk. The article carefully considers how resources can be tailored for use with this population, with an excellent application of theory into clear practice. It helpfully assists the clinician in assessment, case conceptualisation and planning for rehabilitation.
Following this is an excellent set of case studies by Alice Bennett and Mark Moss, looking at the functions of deliberate self-injury on forensic clients with personality disorder. We have had a few papers focusing on this topic over recent issues, and this is a good addition to this. Whilst a small-scale study with obvious limitations attached to this, it nonetheless helpfully explores client-reported functions of deliberate self-injury when residing in a personality disorder service. It uses interviews to produce detailed information, indicating an idiosyncratic experience as to the function of deliberate self-injury using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Their findings note similarity to previous research, with participants presenting with varying levels of insight into their deliberate self-injury. A novel aspect of this study is the finding of a “status-seeking” function of deliberate self-injury, and which is not noted systematically in previous literature.
A paper on a proposed CAMHS Risk Assessment System follows, focusing on the clinicians’ perspective by Paul Tiffin, Matthew Daniel and Steve Weir. This is noted as a new risk assessment system consisting of screening questions and domain-specific sub-schedules. The aim of this study is to undertake the assessment in electronic form within an adolescent mental health setting. As with the previous paper, it adopts a qualitative approach to its research question using focus groups and adopting a thematic analysis framework. They noted a range of themes as part of this, and which provoke further consideration. The importance and value of a structured and comprehensive risk management tool is carefully considered, whilst balancing the pressures of a tool that is helpful to administer. As such, it raises both practical and ethical considerations.
The next paper is a review of the literature focusing on services for women who present with learning disabilities, specifically residing in secure services. Here Rebecca Fish reviews research of relevance to such services and women,helpfully drawing together research from the past 30 years. Themes were identified as part of this, and which are explored within the paper. It is noted that such literature and research is underdeveloped, and there is a significant need to address this area in detail. As such, some considered arguments are made, as well as suggestions for further work.
Following this is a paper by Geoff Dickens, Marco Picchioni and Clive Long. Here they consider aggression in specialist secure and forensic inpatient mental health care, looking at patterns in incidents. They use routinely collected data to consider how aggressive incidents vary across gender, security and other pathways in specialist secure care, focusing their data collection on a 207-bed UK independent sector provider of specialist medium- and low-secure mental health care for male and female adults with a primary diagnosis of mental illness or intellectual disability. In total, 3,133 incidents were recorded and considered. This paper offers valuable insight. For example, they note that most incidents occurred in the medium-secure wards but more than half of the most severely rated self-harm incidents occurred in low security. Men were also disproportionately involved in incidents, but a small number of women were persistently involved in multiple acts. A pattern was noted in that those incidents considered to be of lower concern had a tendency to be under-reported in routine practice. Importantly they noted that aggressive incidents differ substantially in their frequency and nature across security levels, gender and other areas. As such, their paper is well considered with clear practical and ethical considerations for services.
The final paper in this issue is by Helen Walker, Jennifer Young, David Langton and Lindsay Thomson, focusing on the organisational impact of a forensic education programme. The aim of this paper was to evaluate the organisational impact of the “New to forensic mental health” education programme, developed for use across all forensic services in Scotland. Using a qualitative approach,thematic analysis revealed three themes of “Acquiring knowledge: what you learn and how you learn”, “Developing skills” and “Shift in attitudes and behaviour”. The paper skillfully argues that the results demonstrate the positive impact the programme has had at an organisational level and what changes can occur when staff become more knowledgeable, skillful and confident.
Carol A. Ireland and Neil Gredecki
